800 Marvels of the Universe 
chitinous parts of the Mite. But a few days puts all this right, and we now have the adult Mite 
in all its beautiful colouring and perfect form. 
Water Mites feed on decaying vegetable matter and on infusoria (other minute forms of animal 
life), and if kept in a small glass tank or aquarium at home, they can always be detected browsing 
about on the bottom and on the stems of the water plants. One genus of Water Mites are also very 
fond of sucking the juices from members of another genus of large, soft-bodied mites, very common 
in the British Isles. Anyone attempting to keep these two together in the same tank will soon 
find this out for themselves. 
Water Mites are not all swimming mites. The swimmers can generally be recognized by the 
long so-called swimming 
hairs near the joints of the 
legs ; but there are excep- 
tions to this rule, as there 
are several powerful swim- 
mers found in fast-running 
water that only have one 
or two spines near the 
joints on the legs. Besides 
the Mites which swim, 
there are crawlers. These 
are nearly always red, and 
slow and sluggish in their 
movements, The males 
and females are also much 
alike. But in the swim- 
mers in some genera the 
males are so different in 
shape to the females, that 
unless they are taken to- 
gether it is almost im- 
[Bu W. Saville Kent. 
PS MYESNBIR BUMINB: possible to pair them at 
Mr. Saville Kent was one of the first to make a systematic study of these Mites and to the first capture. Then 
rear them through their various stages, and it is from his sketches that we are enabled to A a 9 § 
illustrate the life-history of a Mite. This brilliant scarlet species is shown natural size in there are hard skinned and 
the centre of the sketch. soft-skinned Mites. 
TYLOSAURUS 
BY REV. H. N. HUTCHINSON, F.G.S., F.Z.S. 
AMmoNG the many wonderful things revealed to geologists as they search the stratified rocks for 
“ lost creations,” few, perhaps, are more strange and unlike modern types than certain huge aquatic 
reptiles who flourished during what is known as the Cretaceous period. That period is represented 
in England by the well-known chalk and certain other formations. These great marine reptiles 
propelled themselves by means of their tails and elongated bodies rather than by their limbs. If 
they were living at the present day, they would doubtless be called “ sea-serpents,”’ for their skulls 
are very much like those of the modern lizard known as Varanus. Their fossilized remains have 
been found in Europe, North and South America and New Zealand. The late Professor E. D. Cope, 
of Pennsylvania University, bestowed on this group the name Pythonomorphs, on account chiefly 
of a remarkable arrangement of the jaws which enabled them to swallow their prey whole. One of 
the best known of these huge marine reptiles was the Mosasaurus, already described in this book. 
